My latest articles
other's articles
on gratitude
Which stream?
Identity Theft by F Paul Haney
Jeruslaem - Mantled or Dismantled?
What is the Gospel?
a brilliant article by Anthony Buzzard
Intelligent Design
by Michael Behe
Myths & Facts about Israel
My favourite Christian fiction writers
are Randy Alcorn & Francine Rivers.
Memoriall Service for Gus
Welcome to my christian presentations
OT Religion vs Greek thought and Christian ‘Orthodoxy’:
“The aim of Hebrew religion was Da’ath Elohim (the Knowledge of God); the aim of Greek thought was Gnothi seauton (Know thyself).
Between these two there is a great gulf fixed. We do not see that either admits of any compromise. They are fundamentally different in a priori assumption, in method of approach, and in final conclusion…
The Hebrew system starts with God. The only true wisdom is Knowledge of God. ‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.’ The corollary is that man can never know himself, what he is and what is his relation the world, unless first he learn of God and be submissive to God’s sovereign will.
The Greek system, on the contrary, starts from the knowledge of man, and seeks to rise to an understanding of the ways and Nature of God through the knowledge of what is called ‘man’s higher nature’. According to the Bible, man had no higher nature except he be born of the Spirit.
We find this approach of the Greeks no where in the Bible. The whole Bible, the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, is based on the Hebrew attitude and approach… “ Prof. Norman H. Snaith “Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament"
For years all the disciples of Yeshua were Jewish. The New Testament was entirely written by Jews (Luke being, in all likelihood, a Jewish proselyte). The very concept of a Messiah is nothing but Jewish. Finally, Yeshua himself was Jewish - was then and apparently is still, since nowhere does Scripture say or suggest that he has ceased to be a Jew. It was Jews who brought the Gospel to Gentiles. Sha'ul (Paul) , the chief emissary to the Gentiles was an observant Jew all his life. Indeed the main issue in the early Church was whether without undergoing complete conversion to Judaism a Gentile could be a Christian at all. The Messiah's atonement is rooted in the Jewish sacrificial system; the Lord's Supper is rooted in the Jewish Passover traditions; baptism is a Jewish practice; and indeed the entire New Testament is built on the Hebrew Bible, with its prophecies and its promise of a New Covenant, so that the New testament without the Old is as impossible as the second floor of a house without the first. Thus although the Gospel message is for Jew and Gentile equally, the context of Messianic faith is Jewish (or Hebriac).
- Paraphrased from David Stern’s ‘The Restoration of the Jewishness of the Gospel